Spot On David Hockney

SPOT ON I DAVID HOCKNEY

Spring is in the air

A year after Keith Haring left the building, Bozar welcomes another pop art star into its fold. Put on your rose-tinted glasses for a glimpse into the wonderful universe of David Hockney. — MICHAËL BELLON

Let’s start with auction prices. At 90.3 million euros, Portrait of an Artist by David Hockney is still the most expensive painting by a living artist ever sold at auction. The canvas shows one of the many colourful swimming pool scenes that the painter from Bradford, England made in the 1960s and 1970s after he moved to California. With this, Hockney was certainly more successful in life than that other holder of an expensive paintbrush Vincent van Gogh, with whom he is sometimes compared because of his shimmering use of colour and sustained preference for landscapes and still lifes. The 84-year-old pop artist who likes to paint reality in acrylic paint has been painting for more than 60 years, so after 30 years Bozar is bringing him back to Brussels for a large double exhibition that you can visit with just one ticket. The main event is “Works from the Tate Collection, 1954-2017”, a retrospective of more than 80 paintings, drawings and prints reflecting Hockney’s entire career. With iconic images from both London’s Swinging Sixties and Southern California. With both his famous monumental double portraits My Parents and Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy and his monumental landscapes, and they are not all of them sunny by the way. For example, Bigger Trees Near Warter from 2007 – Hockney’s largest work measuring over twelve metres in length – is an impression of a gloomy day in Yorkshire. More than an encore to this retrospective is “The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020”, presented in collaboration with London’s Royal Academy of Arts. It is an experimental series of no less than 116 works that Hockney “painted” on his iPad in Normandy while in lockdown there. They are a witness to Hockney’s still undiminished passion for experimentation, but also to the optimism that his work conveys: “Do remember they can’t cancel the spring.” These 116 digital works will be printed on high quality paper and exhibited in their entirety at Bozar.

DAVID HOCKNEY: WORKS FROM THE TATE COLLECTION, 1954-2017 + THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING, NORMANDY, 2020

8/10 > 23/1, Bozar decades have escaped the critical but also humorous gaze of the chronicler and satirist of our time. All of his well-known series (The Last Resort, Think of England, Luxury, Common Sense...) are featured. INFO. 17/9 > 18/12, Hangar

-EXPO COLLECTIVE-

NUAGES

FR/ DANS LE CIEL ET DANS LA TÊTE.

Dans les salons et aux murs de la Maison des Arts se figent des nuages, objets poétiques autant que phénomènes météorologiques, qui ont inspiré bien des artistes.

MATIÈRES À PEINDRE ET À PENSER.

Claire Leblanc a puisé dans les collections du Musée d’Ixelles cette sélection subjective d’œuvres d’artistes actuels, majoritairement actifs sur la scène artistique belge, autour de cette thématique vaporeuse. Leurs visions sont mises en dialogue avec celles d’artistes issus de la collection communale. INFOS. 18/9 > 21/11, Maison des Arts

-PAINTING-

CLARA-LANE LENS

EN/ THIS IS WHAT WE SAID about Clara-Lane Lens’ exhibition “They Never Used to Talk Much” at 254Forest earlier this year: “Her Genderless paintings seem to install a truly public, glowing, paradoxical space to inhabit, a body that shows itself in a fluid way.” THAT’S WHAT X SAID presents itself as such a glowing, “new socio-politically engaged art space striving for systemic change.” After the inaugural show by Clara-Lane Lens, Elisa Huberty and Rébecca Prosper aim to start a discussion that goes beyond the art itself, through exhibitions, events and a shop offering work by like-minded artists. INFO. 23/9 > 24/10, That’s What X Said

-LITERATURE-

DOUGLAS STUART & EDOUARD LOUIS

EN/ HARD, TRAGIC, HAUNTING,

TENDER, BEAUTIFUL: these are all laudatory adjectives that apply equally to the Scottish writer Douglas Stuart, who immediately shot to fame with his unsurpassed, 2020 Booker Prize winning debut novel Shuggie Bain, and to the French master storyteller Edouard Louis, who after the bestsellers The End of Eddy, History of Violence and Who Killed My Father has now completed Combats et métamorphoses d’une femme. CLASS DIFFERENCES. The meeting of these two is not just something to look forward to because they are top writers. But mostly because they are popular writers who, like no one else, sense why the world suffers acutely from class differences and inequality. INFO. 24/9, 20.15, Flagey

-FESTIVAL-

CUSTOMS & BORDERS

EN/ BORDER-CROSSERS. For years now, Decoratelier has been building out loud on a scenography for a diverse city. Out loud, so that the construction itself is the dialogue. Radically open, to make space for what remains unbuilt and untold. BORDER-LESS. These border crossings have led to projects that self-consciously and imaginatively question and stretch the boundaries of public and private space. During Decoratelier’s new multidisciplinary festival Customs & Borders, Brussels artists from the Sub-Saharan diaspora – like Brahim Tall, Martha Da’ro, Andie Dushime, Amari, Laryssa Kim and Reinel Bakole – receive us as migrants in their universe. INFO. 24 > 26/9, Decoratelier

-POËZIE-

POETIK BAZAR POETRY PARTY

NL/ RIJMEN EN DICHTEN ZONDER

JE OP TE LICHTEN. Van 24 tot en met 26 september ontvangt Be-Here voor het eerst de tweetalige poëziemarkt Poetik Bazar. Je komt hier niet voor een rondje shop till you drop, maar voor fijne leeswaren die glashelder maken waarom de poëzie nog toekomst heeft.

WIE LEEST VERDIENT EEN FEEST.

En dat komt ervan, in de vorm van een warme omhelzing van Passa Porta, waar ook dichters als Asha Karami, Miriam Van hee, Carmien Michels, Maja Lee Langvad, Volha Hapeyeva en Gaia Ginevra Giorgi aan deelnemen. INFO. 25/9, 19.00, Passa Porta

-SLAM-

KIYÉMIS

FR/ FRICHE AUX MOTS. Dans cette soirée de slam à micro ouvert, Lisette Lombé et Simon Raket seront les maître.sse.s de cérémonie, où l’on entendra Joëlle Sambi, Marie Darah, L’ami terrien, Miss Elli et Kiyémis. TEMPÊTES DE POÉSIE. L’autrice française afroféministe Kiyémis aime se définir comme une afropéenne qui fait du bruit. Son premier recueil À nos humanités révoltées rassemble des textes qui mêlent l’intime et le politique. INFOS. 26/9, Théâtre 140

-PHOTOGRAPHIE

MARIE SORDAT

FR/ RIEN DE RIEN. Après son iconique Empire sorti en 2015, la Bruxelloise d’origine française Marie Sordat est de retour avec un nouveau livre de photographie: Nada. TOUJOURS PLUS LOIN. Digne héritière d’une famille de photographes sauvages et à fleur de peau (Anders Petersen, Michael Ackerman, etc.), l’artiste et professeure à l’Insas poursuit ses errances introspectives, s’aventurant toujours plus loin au pays du chaos et de la mélancolie. INFOS. 30/9, L’Enfant Sauvage

-PAINTING-

NABILA HAMICI

EN/ WHO IS THE ARTIST? The Wetsi Art Gallery at Studio CityGate is a great spotter of talent and presents the completely unknown work of painter Nabila Hamici. WHO AM I? Nabila Hamici moved to Philadelphia after a long stay in visual arts - architecture - performing arts music - cinema - literature - talks - workshops